At the risk of stoking conspiracy theories which I have no interesting in doing, I have absolutely no idea what to make of this. Though it seems worth putting out there nonetheless. Make of it what you will...

Brad,
To quote Robert B. Parker in one of his Spenser novels: "Coincidences exist, but I never got anywhere believing in them." I GUESS this could be a coincidence, but WOW. And this is MY state, and I voted for Lamont.

There are other "exactly the same number" stories in other races from other times. Perhaps even from this election. Like the one from Texas, was it 18,181 or 81,818 across multiple candidates? (the one spelling hahahaha if you figure a=1 and h=8

Gee, what were the chances of THAT happening! Looks a little odd to me. It appears that someone fixed the numbers for Lieberman, but decided to make an educated guestimate on how much to inject into the final tally.

It is not the people saying "olive branch" "partnership" "work together", it's the corporate mainstream media!!! The phrase "olive branch" is what tipped me off to this CMSM talking point. We have heard that a lot on Nov 8th & 9th, but not for the last 6 years.

When the Republicans controlled everything, the phrase "olive branch" was retired by the CMSM who is in bed with the Republicans. When the Dems dusted won the House and Senate, the CMSM dusted off the phrase "olive branch" and shoved it down everyone's throats, to make the Dems appear to hear this from WE THE PEOPLE!!!

I asked my unsuspecting friend, who's not even into this stuff, "Have you heard the phrase 'olive branch' a lot lately?" He said "Yes, what made you say that?" I asked, "Have you heard it a in the past few years?" He said, "No".

CORPORATE MAINSTREAM MEDIA TALKING POINTS FOR REPUBLICANS!!!!!!!!1

"Olive Branch" = CMSM outing themselves as being in bed with the Republicans, and begging us for no impeachment or trials for Republican war crimes, just remember that!

I am proving over and over and over, that the CMSM is in bed with the Republicans. The stupid Dems think the CMSM is US!!!!!!!! That's why you have to write your congressman, like WP said, and remind them that WE THE PEOPLE ARE NOT THE CORPORATE MAINSTREAM MEDIA (CMSM)!!! WE WANT IMPEACHMENT, AND END TO THE WAR, AND TRY THE GOP WAR CRIMINALS!!!!!!!!!

Message to Dems: What you hear in the corporate controlled mainstream media IS NOT US...WE THE PEOPLE!!!

The mainstream media headlines should be, "Expect whistleblowers and leakers to come forward at record pace to sympathetic Democrat chairs on investigative committees. Expect impeachment proceedings. Expect vote system to change."

DO YOU SEE WHAT THEY ARE DOING?

They are setting it up so the Dems look bad and should be ashamed for not doing what the voters want, because they are "not working together", they are not forming "partnerships", they are not extending the "olive branch"...so if the Dems do what we want, they should be "ashamed".....

Get it??? That's the next talking points in the CMSM...IF the Dems do what the voters voted them in to do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The "C"MSM is not dead by a long shot,.. the de facto Rethug propaganda machine is going full force,.. the message will just be slightly more insidious. Repetition of the false message is key to successful indoctrination of the audience,.. expect the machine to grind on. Thanks for the heads up and reminder.

Today Bush said that "WE" have spoken and we want our representatives to be "ethical" and we want them to "work together". That is NOT what I voted for. I voted for one reason: to try to stop the imperial presidency and save our Constitutional rights. This is the root cause of everything else that has gone wrong.

Yes, the media and "RW punditry", etc. are trying to explain WHY we voted Democratic and they are misrepresenting our reasons. This is a set-up, as stated above, trying to make it seem that we want the Democratic leadership to "play fair" or "get along" with BushCo. BULLSHIT.

Another thing: I am HIGHLY suspicious about the election results. TruthIsAll has pointed out at the DU Election Reform forum that the 2006 exit polls are all wrong--AGAIN. We are being lulled into a false sense of security regarding e-voting. Even Kathy Dent in Sarasota is saying she will implement "paper trails". Paper trails are NOT the answer. The memory cards and tabulators can STILL be fixed even with a paper trail--even with audits!

We need hand-counted paper ballots by 2008 or they will do it to us again. Bank on it!

CMSM,.. First "Meet The Press" after the Demo Grand Election Blowout,.. Dems take the senate,.. Dems take the house,.. does Tim Russert have a Demo on the first news show after this landmark election where the majority control of the both houses of congress changes parties ?

No Demos,.. no stop the Iraq occupation during the civil war newly elected Dems,.. how about a Demo to counter balance the Repug invited,.. not one Demo scheduled for the show.

I knew somebody was going to say it, BUT I DIDN'T THINK IT WAS GOING TO BE AL FRANKEN. According to Mike Malloy, Franken said the Democratic victory proves the voting machines work.

Catch breath...

Come on Franken, you're an intelligent guy. You must know that it doesn't even matter if the machines are 100% accurate. What matters is that we KNOW the vote count is accurate. Anybody who says something this stupid from now on, should be sent to some sort of a school of reason.

By the way, if this Leiberman 448,077 coincidence is some kind of vote counting computer fraud program, it is ONE CRUDE VOTE STEALING algorithm. That number has to be in the program somewhere.

Re: Franken. Over and over Franken proves himself to be either completely naive or completely complicit. Even during the primaries for '04 he was part of the game to dump Dean and push Kerry to the forefront...hosting a private party at his home in New York with party insiders to set this all up. Franken is playing some kind of game ...I don't trust him at all.

You mean to tell me they couldn't even get Biden on. Just as well. I'm really skeptical about Biden's Iraq plan seeming to mirror the new Baker plan. I'm so tired of McCain and Biden I could blow my brains out!

And speaking of Dean, what is up with Carville et al planting the seed that we need to replace our most excellent Chairman? Dean is the primary reason we are finally getting somewhere. And they want him out? The DLCers are at it again--and anyone who trusts Carville is insane. He is Mary Matalin's husband, for cripe's sake. That alone disqualifies him as any kind of a "Democratic voice".

I'll follow Dean wherever he goes. If he wants to start a third party, I'm there. I trust the man! Carville lost me totally when I turned on Crossfire one day. He and Begala were being real evasive about Dean and it became obvious they were joining in with the media in trashing him. That was it for me, I never watched that stupid program again!

Whom do you think is counting the votes ?
No one seems ready to ask that question yet IMO

Down here in Florida, just a little after midnight on election day, all phones and internet went dead for about twenty minutes or so, from what I've heard, it was pretty wide spread, I mean like the whole state
What the hell was that all about ?
Any random person I've asked in the last 3 years, not one has ever said they voted Repub
Maybe I just hang out in the wrong places

Orwell is spinning in his grave
Anyone need another bone ?, they're free from the MSM

Floridiot #31Whom do you think is counting the votes ? Um, Wally O'Dell? "All that's left is the counting - and we'll take care of the counting."

That was weird - the phones & internet down all over the state. Have you seen the election return numbers from just before & just after the down time?

Orwell - bless his heart. Rolling ... over & over. "'Who controls the past', ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"

Bones & Olive Branches free from MSM I hear and here's the result:
"She had not a thought in her head that was not a slogan, and there was no imbecility, absolutely none, that she was not capable of swallowing if the Party handed it out to her."

[quotes from 1984 by George Orwell except for the 1st quote - and that was straight from Mr. O'Dell.]

Heh Kira, Ah yes, the infamous Gee Wally, wasn't he the CIA, no wait, OSS, shit I'll get it, the CEO extraordinaire ?
The lines went dead just after midnight on the 7th (from the 6th to)just like they were fixing something (or something)
Too many spooks involved in our new fangled voting process to suit me (courtesy SAIC)
Maybe there is something to that title "The Ghosts in the machine"

Brad, you hit it out of the park with this one, Kudos. I sent the link to TruthIsAll...watch for a probability. Re post 22, Larry Bergan. Hi Larry. Of course Al Franken would say this. He's not left, nor is he liberal, nor is he a friend of reform. He's a friend of Al Franken. The move from show busines, Hollywood, to show business, Washington, DC, is all about business. He's just grabbing with both hands. This is idiotic and he deserves no political support or listener support. It never occurred to him that the secret vote counting is the problem not getting Democrats elected. Amazing. Franken makes me uncomfortable in a way similar to Andy Kaufman. Kaufman was a genius, Franken is just random in a negative sense.

Well now we know why he evaded Brad at that conference a while back. I have to say though, I sure liked what he did to Bill O'reilly on C-SPAN when Billo tried to say he won two Peabody awards. It doesn't get much better then that! Boy, that was a long time ago!

But, yeah, everybody's had a computer in their house for about 20 years now and it's simply unacceptable to feign ignorance about whether they can be used for fraud in an election. All liberals should live in the "reality based world" enough to know that.

Just on a hunch, I checked out that weird coincidence number. GUESS WHAT? It's quite a special number! It's the product of four prime numbers:

3 x 7 x 19 x 1123 = 448077

Just the kind of humorous thing a hacker mind might have done to come up with a number for the Democratic votes limit? (Especially someone into cryptology, since primes feature in that science.) Or, was it just a weird coincidence?

I guess they'll have to change the number before 2008, now that it's been spotted (-;

Nah, someone needed a big number in a hurry. They were using the windows calculator app and the number pad on a pc keyboard. Decided to multiply two numbers to get their big one. Started with the 3 key, then on the way to the multiplication sign, *, they hit a couple of 9's: 399. Just a coincidence, product of primes, 3 x 7 x 19 = 399. After hitting the *, they typed in a very fast number for the next one, all keys on the bottom row: 1123. Just another coincidence, another prime. Voila, 448,077. That number looked about right for the losing count, put that in the code.

We need more than coincidences to nail the corrupters of democracy. Even the staggering odds against the outcomes in the 2004 election did not stick it to them.

We need someone that finds that half million dollar reward tempting enough to spill the beans on the voting criminals. That would get him or her both fame and fortune!

That's interesting. Haven't been able to visit your links yet, but last night I did search for the number 448,077 in connection to US elections. Nothing came up other than the Lieberman/Connecticut 2000 & 2006 races.

Except this one which is a little eerie, and now submitted for your consideration.

So, while we're just being a little spooky - I hear these words ..."You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension.”

Now - if you search this pdf file for "Lieberman" you get a hit for every page [because all candidates & officials are listed on each page] but the peculiar thing is that the search brings up this sentence for each "find" -

It's reading across the line from Lieberman & looping down to the next line. You'll see if you look at the pdf file.

So - is it just another strange coinky-dink?

There is a fifth realm beyond known reality. It is a realm as vast as space and timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground of haze and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies at the pit of man's fears. This is the realm of the unimaginable. It is an area we call "The Bush Zone."

OK, let's put an end to this. Kira in Comment #33 showed that the votes for Lamont DID NOT equal the votes for (the child molesting) Giordano in the year 2000. Brad's graphic, I am convinced, is wrong. Connecticut mainly used lever machines precisely because of the SoS's concern for the security of the vote. It didn't happen here. Look somewhere else. Is VA still going to conduct a recount?

Thing is, after looking at these numbers for the CT returns [my comment #29, numbers taken from CT SoS website], can anybody tell me why there are only 850,253 Names on the Official (Active) Checklist and only 551,031 [Total] Who Voted yet we have over a million votes recorded for this race?

There can't possibly be a half a million provisional votes being counted.

I've never done this before - so maybe I'm missing something. Would love to hear an explanation.

PS The totals are still going up in this race from the link in my comment #33 but the total names on the official (active) checklist has stayed the same. And why should it change?

I think we need to uncover the dang fraud in all states in every precinct, Dredd.

Finding funky numbers, discrepancies, flipped votes, missing votes [click on River's last link in comment #45.] The missing votes might equal 8, but every single vote is precious. In this case the candidate voted for himself but got zero votes.

It really makes me sick that billions of dollars of our tax money has been used to buy these worthless machines, and the sole reason behind the marketing scam is to manipulate our votes.

Kira, you bring up a phenomenon that has occurred in many elections in the past few years--the "more votes than voters" phenomenon. I don't understand why the elections officials can't do simple math counting up the number of registered voters/voters who signed the books, and the total number of votes. This is ridiculous and IMHO indicative of some very sloppy thieves at work or some very last-minute "adjustments" to the totals. I also think it is very weird that the final vote totals veer so far from the pre-race polls and the 7 p.m. exit totals in some key states (MT and VA) in this election, but then the "final exit poll" numbers mysteriously match the final totals because SOP is to adjust them to the "totals". I really don't understand that aspect of the NEP's procedures.

Go to an arts and craft store and buy some small bells with clackers and affix around the cats neck with and elastic type neck band. The bell will ring as the cat gallops to the bird to alert it. The elastic neck band will allow the cat to easily get untangled if the neck band should get hung up on something. Cats hunt/kill an incredible number of song birds as they roam about doing what cats do. We have concerns about West Nile Virus,.. birds/cats/illness.

Czaragorn? Puppies? Peeing? Shrubs? My twenty-eight-pound cat, Moose just died of cancer. He loved to sit and watch the birdies. Wouldn't have known what to do with one if it came up and pecked him on the nose. I just babysat my dad's Yorkie this weekend and she's too short to reach the shrubs... and not the armload of consolation for the cruel world that Moose was either. Darn sweet though. What puppies? Which one of us is mixed up?

Don't put elastic around your cats' necks or you'll strangle them! oldturk is just making a sick joke. Only about half the cats will ever get used to a collar of any kind. Many of them nearly kill themselves till they get them off. Many bad turns with needing to cut the things off of a cat with his mouth or paw tangled up in a collar. Turn them into house cats, and make sure they're neutered. Domestic cats are putting a serious dent in the bird populations, sick or not.

Ned Lamont's campaign says Sen. Joe Lieberman has failed to account for $387,000 in petty cash his campaign spent days before the state's August Democratic primary.

"Whenever this much cash is floating around it certainly raises suspicions of possible vote buying and other potentially illegal activities that the Lieberman campaign must answer," said Liz Dupont-Diehl, a Lamont spokeswoman. "It is crucial for the public to know what they were doing with this slush fund."
The Lieberman camp denied any wrongdoing.

We had a howling good time at the off-leash puppy park! But it was chilly & windy. Winter's a'comin.

Oh - get the quick-release kind of cat collar with a bell. If they get tangled in something the collar will break away & the cat goes free. My cat learned bird calls!! He would sit under trees and make bird sounds hoping to lure one into striking distance. Totally strange but it worked occasionally.

It's true - birds are dying out. People are over-using pesticides, killing the insects that would normally be the birds' food. That plus all the pollution & loss of wild habitat, etc. A very sad & quiet world it will be if we make it to 2025.

Agent 99 #62
I lost my bestest friend 3 years ago in January. My cat [part Russian Blue] was a big cat too - weighed about 23 lbs. His name was Moon, he was 16 yrs. old & died of kidney failure. I still miss him so much. I can empathize with you.

They make expandable cat collars,.. like a Sargent anti flea collar but they have an elastic expand area by the clasp.

---------

An important factor to consider when choosing a cat collar is safety. Collars can be potentially harmful to cats if they become snagged or caught on a fence or a branch. You can buy collars made with an expandable elastic link that lets your cat slip free if his collar becomes caught. Other collars are designed to incorporate a "breakaway" feature: a clasp that opens when pulled hard so your cat won't be strangled if it catches its collar on something.

Then you add a small round ball bell to forewarn the birds as the cat runs up to approach them. We have a bird feeder,.. the cats used to hang out all day and get their exercise and entertainment around the bird feeder. With the bells they now can't sneak up on the birds. We also have West Nile virus,.. birds to cats then illness,.. the bell also alleviates that concern.

It is amazing how many more people post comments to this particular blog entry compared to the others.

Frankly, though, I see this as a not even very surprising coincidence. The final vote tally for Lamont according to the CT SoS CT Statement of Vote 11-7-2006 is 480,481 - a little more than 30,000 votes higher than the tally at the particular moment in time recorded in the graphic above. Almost inevitably, the Lamont vote tally would equal the final vote tally of the losing candidate from a few years ago at some point on its way to reaching a new and higher final vote tally. Since the CT state population is generally on the rise over time, it figures that the final vote tallies are likely to rise with time - even of losing candidates - from an earlier election year to a later one. The only coincidental element is that a media news source should happen to record a vote tally (not yet final) which was the same as the final vote tally for another losing candidate in an earlier election.

If more people were alert and looking for such coincidences I am sure they would find even a great many more. I wish someone with higher mathematical education, especially in probablility theory, could enlighten us all on this topic.

Ewastud and/or TruthIsAll - I'm feeling thick-witted right now. Do you have any answers for my comment #52? I can't for the life of me understand how there could be abt. half a million more votes than names on the official (active) checklist. [Except for blatant thievery as Carol & I discussed earlier on this thread.]

Is this a normal anomaly - or at least a frequent one? If so does it raise any red flags?

ewastud ,seems this is more like an "open thread" ?
getting an open thread around here is like getting the truth out of bush...it happens but my memory isn't good enough to remember the last time it happened.LOL
mick

“Whoa” is right. August J. Pollak* points out this strange coincidence:
Ned Lamont’s vote total, as tabulated by The Associated Press and reported by the nation’s news organizations, with all precincts reporting: 448,077.

(Mike Segar/Reuters)The F.E.C.-certified total for Phil Giordano, the Republican who was Senator Joe Lieberman’s main opponent in the 2000 general election: 448,077.
We even wondered if A.P. had made a mistake. The news service says that is highly unlikely but promised to double-check. The final number, of course, will come from the Connecticut Secretary of State, which is already reportinga higher tally. The A.P. attributed that to differences in accounting for absentee and provisional ballots.
We’ll keep you posted if we hear more.
*Disclosure: The post was pointed out by his father, Michael Pollak, a metro copy editor who also writes the F.Y.I. column.

I second 84. It's very unlikely that CNN's numbers even came from the CT Sec. of State --- they are probably tallies put together by local news organizations who have reporters writing down precinct counts as they come in. Coincidences do happen.

Please Old Turk #21, leave your brains in your head: we need them on Bradblog. Well not literally "ON" bradblog, but, you know, in the posts. : )

Our gnarly old cat Spike died last year, after seven years of diabetes. I'm still not okay with it. Spike asked a lot of questions ( yes, his meow concluded with an upward inflection). I think his questions were mostly about food. A wonderful cat. I write this in his memory.

Al Franken's statement makes the adrenaline rush to my head. The way I'm thinking about it is:

Brad and others yell and scream long and loud enough to wake up the mainstream news. The mainstream starts looking to the internet for voting news since they haven't generated their own.

Lou Dobbs et. al, catch on and start shining the flashlight nightly on the hackability of machines.

Repunchkins know they are WAY behind in the polls although they pretend to be closing the gap at the end. They also know that with that flashlight on the elections it is too risky to steal them bigtime.

The conclusion is that voting activists and the public scrutiny they awakened, prevailed in this election. The publicity basically kept the election straight enough to keep republicans from prevailing when the polls showed they couldn't. The relatively straight election has the unfortunate effect of making too many people relax about elections and those nasty machines.

To make a leap from the fact the democrats won to the okayness of voting machines, or to the reliability of elections is either naive or worse.

When the flashlight goes off cheaters will be right back at it.

I don't know what this means about Al Franken, but I don't like it.

I'm also concerned about Chellie Pingree of Common Cause. Why is she advocating a paper trail, since as

Carol#18 says:

"The memory cards and tabulators can STILL be fixed even with a paper trail–even with audits! "

Lie-Berman spent $400,000 during the midterm election that was not accounted for on his spending forms,.. did he expend the funds to hire thick necked young republican fascist thugs to disrupt Lamont campaign events ?

Read Bruce O'Dell's excellent series on why we need hand-counted paper ballots on www.opednews.com. He is a serious statistician who was working with Kathy Dopp after the 2004 election on precinct analyses and he has come to the conclusion that what we need is a exit strategy for e-voting. No machines!

These races are fixed, this is the real reason Lie-berman was so confidant he was going to win. The Repubs & Dems are in it together. Angry public? Well just give them a little change to make them happy and STAY THE COURSE. Isn't it obvious, because the Dems have plenty to impeach with but won't do anything. Nothing will change until an irate public is up in ARMS instead of arms up!! But we would simply be arrested and called TERRORIST, sent to Guantanamo or some nice little Haliburton/KBR camp, no Habeas Corpus, never to be heard from again. They have a nice hold on POWER don't they?